This invention relates to systems and methods for generating pulsed, tunable, monochromatic X-rays. More particularly, this invention pertains to systems for generating pulsed, tunable, monochromatic X-rays with high flux and in a configuration useful both for medical imaging and therapeutics and as a research instrument in the biological, biomedical, and materials sciences.
The characteristics of some X-ray beams are potentially such that they can be used in standard geometry monochromatic imaging, CT-like images of the breast using a rotating mosaic crystal "optic", time-of-flight imaging and phase contrast images. However, X-ray absorption imaging as currently practiced utilizes only a small part of the information amassed by an X-ray beam traversing a patient. For example, assessing damage to limbs and body cavities in severe trauma by appraising the disruption of fascial planes, and visualizing devitalized tissues, extravasated blood or imbedded non-opaque foreign materials is very difficult or sometimes impossible with standard X-rays or computerized tomography (CT). The same is true when one wishes to evaluate the patency of arteries and veins, non-invasively and without the use of dangerous contrast agents. Potentially, a great deal more information could be extracted during an examination, if a more versatile monochromatic X-ray beam/detector combination were available for use. Similarly, the early detection of abnormalities such as tumors, fatty replacement, or scarring in other organs such as the breast or lung is problematic at best using conventional imaging techniques and equipment.
Currently, standard X-ray tubes deliver a much broader spectrum of radiation than what is either needed or desired to make an image. Pulsed, tunable monochromatic X-rays would allow one to select a photon energy best suited to the imaging task at hand. For example, the frequency that would be optimal to image a breast is very different from the frequency needed to image a chest or the brain.
Monochromatic X-ray imaging can simultaneously reduce the radiation dose to a patient and reduce scattered radiation from high energy photons not needed for the image in the first place. This can be useful in several ways. Cancerous breast tissues, for example, exhibit higher linear attenuation characteristics than do normal tissues, when studied with monochromatic X-rays. This property can be exploited to improve the sensitivity and specificity of breast imaging in a number of ways. The ability to alter the geometry of an X-ray beam would make it ideal for imaging in humans as well as in materials science, molecular biology and cell biology. Standard geometry monochromatic imaging, CT imaging using new X-ray optics made from mosaic crystals, phase contrast imaging, and time-of-flight imaging are just a few examples of the potential applications for such a system.
Conventional medical X-ray equipment has not employed short pulse structures in X-ray generation. Consequently, conventional X-ray equipment continues to generate unneeded background radiation, requiring the use of shielding that substantially increases the size of the equipment. Although pulsed soft X-rays have been used in photolithography for manufacturing of integrated circuits, there has been no similar use in imaging applications or in the production of hard X-rays.
Production of pulsed, nearly monochromatic X-rays via the inverse Compton effect (in which optical photons and electrons interact to provide X-ray photons, as demonstrated in FIG. 2 and discussed in more detail below) has been recognized for some time. Systems employing this methodology are theoretically capable of providing a steady supply of ultra-short (e.g., less than 10 picoseconds), X-ray pulse strings. However, such systems exhibit a variety of shortcomings. For example, they typically require large, expensive laser sources to produce the optical photons. Additionally, the systems are unable to adequately control the production of the X-ray pulses, so that appreciable shielding is still required, and any failure of the shielding mechanism may result in a dangerous dose of radiation to a patient. Moreover, the systems are incapable of reducing or eliminating the adverse effects of patient movement during the imaging process. In short, such systems are impractical for wide-spread, convenient use, particularly for the production of high quality, safe X-ray images.
In addition to medical imaging, a source of an intense, pulsed (&lt;10 ps) hard X-rays will be of value in time-resolved structure determination in both materials science and structural biology.
What is needed, then, is a compact source of pulsed, tunable, monochromatic X-rays having the proper beam geometry, low radiation dose, and high brightness to image human beings and other materials.